‘Indie Watch’ is the weekly indie game review segment from NPR’s All Tech Considered. Here’s a taste of the latest fromSteve Mullis, Web producer at NPR. Follow their gaming Tumblr, NPR Plays.

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

That famous line, said by Tim Robbins in the film The Shawshank Redemption, perfectly summed up his character’s struggle and subsequent escape from the titular prison. It also, however, perfectly encapsulates the feeling of the game Banished, a new indie city-builder from Shining Rock Software.

The game places you in charge of a small band of villagers, banished from somewhere for unknown reasons, who are now tasked with starting their own town from the ground up. The goal is simple: survive. They must gather the proper resources, build houses, grow food and basically make a livable community so they can start popping out babies.

It’s this emphasis on simple survival that sets Banished apart from city-builder games that have preceded it.